


Possible Flaws of Domestication

by hayesgeneration



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Arguing, Domestication, Established Relationship, M/M, Passive-aggression
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-10
Updated: 2013-05-10
Packaged: 2017-12-11 11:24:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/798164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hayesgeneration/pseuds/hayesgeneration
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek is an animal kept on a leash; a wolf playing a man. Some days, Stiles wonders how they even got so far as to have a house, have jobs, have a fucking basketball hoop in the driveway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Possible Flaws of Domestication

Stiles knows Derek’s angry the second he’s in the door; he doesn’t slam it, or swear unusually when he trips over the doormat like he always does, Stiles just _knows_. He puts down the tiring excuse of a high school English essay he’s been grading, and steps out of the kitchen to lean against the doorway to the hall. Derek shoves his shoes unnecessarily roughly into the shoe rack and scowls at it like it’s personally offended him, which, on any other day, Stiles would have teased him about (because they always snark at each other, and they always have, and there’s nothing like the sex after Derek has rediscovered that Stiles’ infuriating banter makes it even more satisfying to slam him up against a wall, like old times, only with a lot more sucking and grinding involved, which Stiles sure as hell doesn’t mind).

But the newspaper in Derek’s hand is so tightly clenched the Stiles can spot ink coming off on Derek’s fingers, so he doesn’t say anything.

Derek finally looks up, and Stiles looks back, and cants his head to the right with raised eyebrows. Derek takes a very, very deep breath. Stiles waits. He waits, because he knows that if he looks at Derek long enough, he’ll talk all by himself (something Stiles learned years and years ago, back when college was creeping closer and Derek was being broodier than usual, right before a near-death situation that lead to messy sex in Derek's loft, which in turn lead to a long-distance-thing none of them acknowledged when asked).

Stiles waits because it works. Derek stares at him for a long moment and than almost jerks towards the living room with a snarl.

”All this fucking mediocre _chitchat_ with people we don’t even know, I’m sick of it,” Derek hisses, and tosses the clenched-up newspaper at the coffee table in an exasperated jerk. The paper slaps into the side of the table and flaps onto the floor. Stiles frowns, and bends down to pick it up.

“Derek,” he says, cautiously. Derek turns and starts pulling his jacket off angrily (Derek pulls off clothes angrily when he’s _upset_ , when he’s confused, like when Stiles had been subjected to a parent of one of his students inappropriate, snide remarks about his life choices, and Derek had been pissed, but he’d also been scared, because _he_ was Stiles’ life choice, and maybe that really was bad. He’d yanked off his own and Stiles’ clothes, pressed his mouth to Stiles’ clavicle, and then abruptly left their bedroom in a fit of panic. It had taken them a very long night talking things through for Stiles to convince Derek that he was the most right choice Stiles had ever made).  

“Derek,” Stiles insists, stepping closer, and Derek abruptly sits down on the couch and runs his palms over his face with a sigh (Derek speaks more with his face and his body than people give him credit for. Stiles knows every face, can catalogue every sigh, every quirk in his posture, can read when Derek wants to be held or when he needs Stiles to bend him over the kitchen table and remind him that he’s capable of submission, to a degree).

“I’m sick of this, Stiles. I’m sick of having to play normal with neighbours – do you know how long it had been since I had neighbours? Actual let’s-talk-about-fucking-lawns neighbours?” he groans. Stiles knows it’s not that; Derek tends to pour his insecurities onto things he can look at, point at, an anxiety objectified (he always does that, did that when Isaac’s mate miscarried as well, chose to blame the lycanthropy and that way himself instead of accepting that things like that just happen, werewolf or not).

“You don’t have to talk to them—“ Stiles begins, but Derek snorts and cuts him off. Oh, no you don’t, Stiles thinks and slinks down eye to eye with Derek, pulling at his hands and controlling his urge to be irritated.

“We’re happy, Derek, I know it’s not really what you’d expected, but I think this beats living in the shell of a train car and eventually dying in a ditch—“

Derek makes an annoyed sound, gets up and leaves the living room. Stiles, having none of his shit, follows, because years of experience have taught him not to let pissed off werewolves wander. He’s thinking of getting that stitched in embroidery and stuck on a wall sometime (he never lets Derek, especially, be alone when he’s mad, because that usually leads to something breaking, most often Derek).

“If you’re unhappy with something, tell me, because honestly man, you know I hate this passive-aggressive, vague bullshit. Your words, Derek, use them.” (They’re still working on that, really.)

With that, Derek spins around, bringing his face close enough that Stiles can feel the heat rolling off of him.

“I’m unhappy, dearest,” Derek growls, sarcasm dripping; it’s an octave so deep it makes the base of Stiles’ throat itch.

“It’s a fucking peach-pie and picket fence life we have, Derek, anybody would want that,” Stiles snarks back. There’s a minute tick in Derek’s jaw, and Stiles feels rather than hears the feel of Derek’s chest heaving in a deep, barely controlled breath.

“It’s what you want, Stiles, what _you_ want,” he spits, and the implication stings; Stiles just exactly keeps himself from recoiling like a snapped rubber band, but he knows that Derek can tell the moment he stiffens like a board, chest clenching painfully.

That doesn’t stop him from glaring right back, though.

Derek used to live in a house, with people, with human beings, with every-day routines, grocery shopping and school. Derek was domesticated. He stopped being domesticated the moment his house burned down; gave in to the wildness, cut the cord between people-normal and wolf-normal for a while before he made the pack (some days, Stiles sees it more than others, sees the tenseness in Derek’s shoulders when he’s had to deal with customers in the car shop who piss him off, customers who don’t know to respect him for what he is, customers who can’t smell the authority on him, who won’t bare their throats in submission because they’re _human_. Some days, Derek doesn’t seem to remember that).

Derek is an animal kept on a leash; a wolf playing a man. Some days, Stiles wonders how they even got so far as to have a house, have jobs, have a fucking basketball hoop in the driveway. He wonders why Derek has stayed this long (sometimes wonders why Derek took him in the first place, wonders why Derek’s intensity was directed at him, from every direction, until the tension just snapped and they ended up together; why Derek used to look at Stiles like he was prey as well as mate, how that look managed to gradually change to only the latter, the better, and why Stiles still sometimes sees the first when Derek looks at him if they’re fighting, like he’s forgotten about the progress). 

It takes Stiles a couple of tries to convince his voice to work, throat clicking as he swallows.

“No one is forcing you to stay,” he hears himself say.

“If you don’t want to be here,” with me “you can leave.”

So Derek does. 

**Author's Note:**

> This has been lying around for a while; I'm working on the next chapter for Dog Days of Summer, but in the meantime, have some Cons Of Being In A Relationship With A Born Slightly Mental Werewolf Sigh.


End file.
